Best Prom Ever
by mailroomorder
Summary: Blaine has always wanted to go to a school dance with a boy. Preferably a boyfriend, but really, just a boy in general. He yearns to have pictures of himself and a boy posing with each other and putting boutonnieres on each other. But that will never happen. Cue Blaine's best friend Sam. And really, who could ask for a better friend?


"Student Body President, Co-Captain of Glee Club—I've spent two years at this high school planning and participating in these Proms, and not once have I ever been asked to go," Blaine says, partially upset and partially angry.

"What do you mean?" Sam asks. They're sitting in the Student Government homeroom pouring over papers and pamphlets for the upcoming Senior Prom. "Tina asked you to Junior Prom last year."

"I turned her down," Blaine reminds him as he grabs a binder on budgets and flips open to the Food & Drink tab. "Because I'm super gay and she was just using me so she wouldn't have to stand alone in pictures."

"Oh," Sam says rather dumbly. "I guess it didn't matter anyway since she went with her friend from Asian Camp."

Blaine shakes his head in irritation. "Where is Quinn?"

"Right here," Quinn responds, walking into the room briskly. "What do you want?"

"Did you talk to Coach Sylvester?" Blaine asks.

Quinn walks right up to the long table that Blaine is sitting at and leans her hands on it. She's taller than Blaine this way, and Blaine has to look up at her.

"I did. And she said yes, under one condition."

Blaine pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs in exhaustion. "Do I even want to know what that condition is?"

Quinn shakes her head. "Frankly, no. But it doesn't matter. I can deal with it."

"As Student Body President I feel like I should _know_ what this caveat is. But I can say with complete honesty that at this rate, I really don't care."

Quinn scrunches her eyebrows up in confusion and turns towards Sam, who is still fiddling around on one of the high school's laptops that he checked out from the library. He's supposed to be checking the Senior Prom email account and seeing if the florist ever got back to them, but Blaine has a feeling that he's definitely _not_ doing that.

"I think he's bummed that he's going to Prom alone again," Sam says with little interest, not even looking up from the screen.

 _Yeah,_ Blaine thinks, _he's definitely not doing what he's supposed to be doing_.

"Give me the laptop," Blaine demands, standing up and walking over to Sam who just rolls his eyes and stands up from his seat. Blaine sits down and checks the email, but there's nothing from the florist.

"This is maddening," he says. "There weren't as many problems last year."

"That's because last year was _Junior_ Prom and nobody cares about Junior Prom anyway. Junior Prom is held in the gymnasium and the cafeteria. Senior Prom is at the Convention Center downtown," Quinn says, standing up and adjusting her Cheerios uniform.

Blaine groans in frustration. He didn't think it was possible, but he may have just lost all of the excitement he had about going to Prom.

* * *

Blaine loves McKinley. He really does. It's _far_ better than his old school, which he attended for not even an entire year in the ninth grade. He left at the end of his freshman year after being beat up outside the school's Sadie Hawkins dance because he went with a guy. He ended up transferring to McKinley with some deal his lawyers made with both school districts, and Blaine's vastly enjoyed his time there.

There's a lot of differences between his two schools, though.

Parkman High had more gay students, but was overall incredibly intolerant. McKinley has almost not LGBT students, and Blaine is the only one who's out and proud and vocal about it anyway. It makes dating damn near impossible. And it also makes it incredibly difficult to find boys to go to dances with him.

His entire life he's dreamed of going with boys to dances and proms. It's all he's ever wanted—to be able to take a boyfriend to a dance and take cheesy photos together and slow dance together. He had the opportunity once, but it ended in a black eye, a bruised lip, and a really sore hand (he gave back just as good as he got).

So when he transferred to McKinley in the tenth grade and realized that he was the only out student there, he put his high school dreams on the backburner and hoped beyond all hope that by the time he was a senior there would be someone there for him.

Turns out he's not so lucky.

* * *

It's a month before Senior Prom and all of the big, important stuff is done; the venue is booked, the caterers are chosen, the florist finally got back to them. The next month everyone on Student Government will be stressing out trying to complete the smaller details, but the big stuff is done, and Blaine can heave a sigh of relief.

Right now his main focus is selling tickets, and he and his friends on SGB spend their lunches selling overpriced tickets to beyond eager students.

"How many tickets do you think we'll sell?" Quinn asks from next to him. They've only been selling tickets for two days but they've already sold over two hundred, and they have another two weeks left.

"Honestly, I have no clue. Hopefully more than six hundred."

"Did you get your ticket yet?" Quinn asks, picking at a sandwich she brought from home.

"Yeah. First one to buy a ticket," Blaine replies, leaning back in his chair.

"You buy only one?" Quinn prods.

Blaine turns to her and looks curiously. "Why would I buy two?" he asks.

She shrugs noncommittally. "I don't know. I didn't know if you had someone to go with."

Blaine takes a moment to think about his response. He knows that he's been testy as of late, and he knows he's taken it out on Quinn (his Vice President) more often than not. So he wants to be careful with how he words what he says, because he's pretty sure that if he jumps down her throat one more time she may stage a coup and overtake him.

"A few friends expressed interest in going with me," he says slowly. "All girls. But I really don't want that."

"What's wrong with just going with a friend?" Quinn asks. "I am."

"It's not that," he assures her. "I don't have a problem with _that_. At this rate that's what I'm hoping for. I just don't want that friend to be a girl."

"Why's that?" she asks without malice, and Blaine can hear the honest curiosity tinting her voice. His sexuality is not something he talks about often, not because he's afraid to, but because he's finally found a group of friends that don't care that he's gay. He revels in the fact that he can just _be_ and not have to explain himself to anyone.

"I've gone with girls before and have had fun. And I have lovely Prom pictures with them. With me standing behind them and giving them wristlets and having them pin boutonnieres on me. And it's nice having those pictures. But it's my Prom—the last one I'll ever have. And I just don't want to look back on pictures of me standing with a girl. That's not my dream. It isn't what I want. I don't mind going stag if it means I don't have to do that."

Quinn nods slowly, and Blaine can tell that she's trying to wrap her mind around it. His friendship with Quinn is always a bit tentative. He's grown to really like and appreciate her, but when they first met two years ago they didn't really get along at all. If it weren't for his best friend Sam dating her last year, he probably never would have associated with her. That and the fact that she won SGB Vice President brought them closer together, and now they enjoy each other's company.

But Quinn was always a little bit too religious for Blaine, at least until the past year when she really reined in her Christian streak and started questioning her own beliefs and morals. Now when she asks Blaine a question he knows that it's well meaning, and he doesn't mind putting the extra effort in to explain something.

"So," she continues after a moment, "if you could go with a guy—even if he was straight—you would do that?"

Blaine thinks about it. "Yeah," he shrugs. "I guess. I mean, I'd rather go with a guy I _like_ , but I just want to be able to have that experience. To redo it. I'd like to go to my Senior Prom with a guy and _not_ get beat up and not get looked at differently."

Quinn nods her head in what Blaine guesses is understanding and drops the topic.

* * *

It's two weeks before Prom when Sam and Blaine hang out at Blaine's house with a bunch of other friends. They're having a HALO tournament, and basically they're going to stay up all night until they crash on the basement couch or the floor.

"So," Blaine starts as he opens the pizza box in front of him and grabs himself a slice, "who are you going to Prom with again? I feel like I never asked."

"Oh," Sam says, a little shocked. "I uhm, I haven't decided yet." He glances nervously at Blaine and his player ends up getting shot.

"Way to go," Artie says sarcastically.

"Oops," Sam replies.

"How do you not know?" Blaine asks. "Prom is two weeks away. Don't you have to buy her a ticket? We stopped selling them already."

"Uh, yeah," Sam says, eyes staying on the TV screen. "I just haven't decided yet."

Blaine feels weird about the interaction, and he can tell that something is going on that he doesn't know about. He assumes it has something to do with Quinn. Or maybe Rachel. He never knows who Sam's latest fling-of-the-month is anymore, but he assumes that there must be trouble in paradise.

Anyway, he doesn't really care. He has better things to worry about. Like the fact that he's supposed to be getting his roommate assignment for college soon.

Just a few more months and Blaine will be attending Marymount Manhattan College where he will be majoring in Acting and Psychology. He could not be more excited, especially since Artie is moving to the city, too, so he'll have at least one friend there with him.

But before all of that happens he needs to get through the rest of his senior year. And Prom. He needs to get through Prom.

He's already picked his tux out and his own boutonnière, and he's already laughing at the image he's conjured up in his mind of his parents taking solo pictures of him getting ready and pinning it onto his own lapel, or maybe having his father do it for him.

 _Whatever_ , he thinks almost flippantly. _It's just Prom._

* * *

One week. Just one week left until Prom.

Blaine is incredibly excited. It feels so good to see all of his hard work paying off, and it fills him in indescribable joy every time he walks down the halls and hears his classmates chippering away about it enthusiastically.

School just ended and he's on his way to his homeroom—which is only for members of the Student Government—to work on some more Prom stuff when Artie intercepts him.

"I need you for a second," Artie says calmly, stopping Blaine in the middle of the hall right before his homeroom.

"Can it wait?" Blaine asks. "I told Mr. Bianchini that I'd finish the Excel spreadsheet for non-McKinley students coming to Prom."

"No. It's sort of an emergency. I need you now."

Blaine looks at him skeptically. "What kind of emergency are we talking about here? Because if Tina got stuck in her locker again then I'm not helping her out. I don't understand why she keeps trying to fit in there."

"It's not that," Artie says almost frantically. "But I need your help in the cafeteria."

Blaine surveys the situation and decides that Artie looks desperate enough that perhaps it really is an emergency.

"Lead the way," he sighs.

It's a short walk from his homeroom to the cafeteria, and it's spent entirely in silence. Artie is rolling himself down the hall quicker than necessary, and Blaine almost has to jog to keep up. It makes him start to worry that there may actually be a serious problem going on. Maybe someone is hurt.

When they get to the closed double doors of the cafeteria, Artie stops suddenly.

"You go in first," he says, gesturing awkwardly to the door.

Without saying anything Blaine cautiously pushes open the door, not quite sure what scene will greet him.

"SURPRISE!"

All of the cafeteria tables have been folded up and pushed against the walls, and here are _dozens_ of people standing there and looking at Blaine. It takes him a moment to gather himself as he looks around at everyone, and he realizes that they're all congregated around a truly _ginormous_ piece of paper that has to be at least ten feet long and three feet tall, all being held up by his friends. Standing on a chair in the center, right behind the paper, is Sam, who is holding a bouquet of flowers and smiling handsomely.

Blaine nearly chokes on his tongue when he reads the poster.

 **you're hella gay, I'm hella str8**

 **but you're like my brother**

 **so be my d8?**

 _This._ This is _not_ what Blaine was expecting, and he can't help himself when his eyes get a little watery.

"Oh my god," he exhales, grabbing onto the straps of his messenger bag to stop his hands from shaking.

He takes a moment to just _stare_ : at the sign, at all of his friends that are there, the lunch ladies and some of the teachers, and finally at Sam, who is still smiling brightly with this shit eating grin that he has.

"So?" Sam says, smile intact as he bops around a bit on the chair.

"Yes," Blaine says, smiling and laughing, trying his hardest not to let the tears fall but failing a bit at it. "Yeah. Definitely."

Sam hops off the chair and walks around the poster so he can hand Blaine the flowers.

"Whew!" Sam says. "Would've been awkward if you said no," he smiles.

Blaine laughs a watery laugh and tries to hide his tears by dipping his nose into the bouquet so he can smell the flowers.

"Bet you weren't expecting this, huh?" Sam grins.

Blaine takes a deep breath. "No. No, I wasn't."

They hug for a few long seconds, and that's when Blaine realizes that people are cheering and taking pictures all around him.

"Our tuxes better match," Blaine says as he detaches himself from his best friend.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Sam smirks. "I had Quinn sneak into your closet the other week when she was hanging out at your house."

"I knew it!" Blaine laughs. "I totally caught her and she said she was just trying to throw away my bowties."

"Don't worry. No bowties were harmed in the making of this promposal."

Blaine basically has the best friends _ever_.


End file.
